Ecosia: The Search Engine That Plants Trees When You Search Something

You can now plant trees while you search the web

Ecosia has started ploughing search ads profit into green energy

Not-for-profit search engine Ecosia

The Berlin-based search engine, Ecosia, was founded by a guy named Christian Kroll in December of 2009. It was after a trip around the world, that he saw the devastating impacts of deforestation. It was a relatively simple idea — like most good things are — but it quickly snowballed into something big.

Ecosia spends most of that money coming from the ad revenue on tree-planting projects. A pretty staggering percentage, in fact: 80 to 100 percent of it. They cover their costs, then throw the rest into the future of the planet.

That has made them the largest financier of native tree restoration in the world. So far, Ecosia has planted over 130 million trees across 9,000 planting sites worldwide. Every month, they publish their financial reports and tree planting receipts, just so everyone knows they’re doing what they say they’re doing.

Aside from the tree planting initiatives, Ecosia has a few other benefits that the Googles of the world don’t have. Not like most other companies, Ecosia began building its solar plants in 2018. Since then, they’ve added enough clean energy to the grid to power all Ecosia searches with 100 percent renewable energy.

It also doesn’t permanently store users’ data. Everything is wiped every week, and the data it does collect for those seven days isn’t sold to advertisers. All searches are encrypted and it doesn’t use any external tracking tools. They are answering weird internet questions, taking ad money, and planting an enormous number of trees.

They are now making an “ongoing commitment” to green energy investment as a result of the energy crunch triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The initial focus for investment is on Germany, which is particularly reliant on buying gas from Russia — meaning its economy is heavily exposed to the crisis in Ukraine.

The war has already created a fresh impetus for the world to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels to renewables — layering an economic crisis on top of the climate crisis which could lead to a surge in demand for renewables.

Although fossil fuel interests have been quick to spin up a counterargument to try to block any rush toward green energy — lobbying for Western nations to increase their exploitation of oil and gas and torch life on Earth even faster. So, there’s no shortage of reasons for investors to cut checks for renewables like there’s no tomorrow.

Ecosia says it’s put up an initial $30 million to fund startups and community energy initiatives — focusing its early investment on the supplier network of Berlin-based startup Zolar, a platform that links customers wanting to install solar systems with local planning and installation businesses to support the rollout of green energy to households across Germany.

Ecosia said it’s already invested $23 million into small solar systems through Zolar’s local solar distribution network, alongside other renewable energy projects across the country.

“At the moment, we’re supporting renewable energy projects across Germany. Further investment into renewable energy will be likely as Ecosia evaluates community energy projects and pitches from founders and these may take place in other countries,” a spokesperson said.

What’s Ecosia and how does it work?

They added that Ecosia’s goal for the green energy investments is to encourage more businesses to invest in renewables and speed up the transition to renewables at a time when it has never been more pressing to leave fossil fuels in the ground.

“If you’re a company wanting to scale your investments into renewable energy beyond climate-neutral and need advice, or a founder or community project leader with a green energy idea that can make a difference in terms of reducing European reliance on fossil fuels, get in touch with our energy team,” it said, noting that Chief Operating Officer Wolfgang Oels is heading up the initiative.

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